It’s a known fact that how economic uncertainty, new technology and a progressive female Millennial are at the center of many of the region’s trends. It is important to look at these and other progressive cohorts, which are counteracting traditional values, driving new behaviors and leveraging technology to redefine their lives, with an increasingly polarized Arab society emerging. 

Through a first-time-ever report JWT MEA, part of JWT has forecasted key trends that will gain significant momentum over the next 12 months within the MENA region.

The report also spotlights how businesses are responding to their pull, as the consumer landscape becomes more demanding and assertive.

Here are few of the trends discussed:

Authentically Arab: Middle East markets are upending ‘Glocal’ to ‘Authentically Arab’ consumption, with homegrown concepts that are conceived with cultural relevance yet remain internationally appealing. This ‘maker movement’ is capturing the attention of global audiences as consumers pay attention to the differential value of unequivocal brands from the Middle East.

Maximising Mobile Moments: Watch lifestyle multitasking move over to lifestyle hyper-tasking, as consumers seek to control, operate and connect to almost everything around them. This imparts a host of implications for brands as consumers look to maximize every moment through their mobile devices.

Uniqueness as a Competitive Advantage: Stepping up from conformity to individuality, Arabs are embracing anything that enables unique performance. Visible status symbols will face increasing competition from status stories where brands help consumers narrate status-yielding stories to other consumers. 

JWT MENA’s 8 Trends for 2013 report is a result of quantitative, qualitative and desk research conducted by JWT’s Brand Intelligence team in MENA throughout the year. Specifically for this report, quantitative surveys in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Morocco and Lebanon were conducted, in which 1,100 adults aged 18 plus were polled, (300 Saudi Arabia, 100 Qatar, 300 Egypt, 300 Morocco, 100 Lebanon). Inferences were also made from previous and current JWT Global trend reports to understand imminent global influences on a local scale.  Excerpts and inferences from several regional syndicated reports are included. JWT planners across the five key MENA markets were fielded for input.